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Spider-Man wasn’t sure what to do. After all, he hadn’t done anything to interfere with whatever procedure Morbius had just done. The rage on the vampire’s face told him that it didn’t matter. Failure had angered him to the point where he wasn’t thinking rationally.

“I didn’t,” Spider-Man tried.

Morbius interrupted him with a snarl as he hurled a table at Spider-Man.

Normally, having a table thrown at him wasn’t something that he would be afraid of. He’d been hit by plenty of harder objects. This table was covered in chemical filled glass containers. Without knowing what was in those containers, or what would happen if the chemicals inside of them mixed, Spider-Man wanted no part of what was coming his way.

Peter leapt away nimbly, barely making it out of the way. He shot two streams of his web at Morbius. From previous experience, he knew that his webbing wouldn’t hold the vampire indefinitely. All it needed to do was slow him down, though. The strands did their job and tangled Morbius up enough that he had to stop to free himself from them.

His opportunity upon him, Spider-Man jumped forward and, using his momentum, landed a solid punch in the middle of Morbius’ chest. The vampire flew backwards until he crashed into the machine he had just been using. A small crack appeared in the glass wall of the chamber, but, other than that, the setup remained intact. Still, it was enough to infuriate its builder even more.

“If you have broken my machine,” Morbius hissed, “I will drain every last drop of blood from your veins before the night is through.”

The vampire lunged at Spider-Man clumsily. Peter jumped over him and grabbed ahold of the ceiling. Turning his head as his opponent passed underneath him, he saw that he was right to be afraid of what would happen if the chemicals mixed. At the base of the wall the table hit, smoke was starting to billow. A second later, a small fire appeared. Upon seeing the flames, Morbius became even angrier.

“I will not let you destroy what I’ve built here, Spider-Man!”

He wanted to point out that it had been Morbius who had thrown the chemicals, but he knew that it wouldn’t make a difference. Instead, he shot more webbing at his opponent. This time, the vampire mimicked Spider-Man’s earlier move and jumped over it. Morbius flew forward and crashed into Peter as he hung from the ceiling.

The two combatants hit the floor hard and began wrestling around. All of Morbius’ energy was put into trying to get his fangs onto Peter’s neck. All of Spider-Man’s energy was spent making sure he didn’t.

Morbius managed to get on top of him. Spider-Man was using both hands to keep the fangs at bay. The vampire took his hands and began trying to gouge the hero’s eyes through the mask. With his strength, and mask, starting to give out, Peter knew it was time to take action. He let go of Morbius’ head and quickly twisted to the side.

With nothing holding him back now, Morbius’ face shot down with all of his strength. After Spider-Man had moved out of the way, there was nothing between him and the ground. His face hit the ground with a hard slap. If the vampire had a nose, it would’ve broken. It was still enough to temporarily knock the sense out of him, though.

Knowing he had to strike before he recovered, Spider-Man picked the vampire up and hurled him into the machine with all of his might. A loud crash accompanied the sound of breaking glass as Morbius broke through the glass chamber. Sparks shot out of various electrical wires. Power to the machine flickered briefly before going out altogether. Peter smiled. It worked just as he had hoped. In that one move, he had both destroyed the machine and hurt Morbius.

He wanted to go to the chamber and make sure that the vampire was down for the count, but the acrid smoke from the chemical fire began burning his nostrils. Suddenly, his spider sense began going off. Using his webs, he got out of the room as quickly as possible. When he was about fifty yards back down the sewer line, the whole room exploded in a bright white fireball. The heat pouring off of it assaulted his lungs as the shockwave blasted the air out of him.

A couple of minutes went by as Spider-Man just laid there. His breathing became regular again and he lifted himself up off the ground. Slowly, he made his way back to the room’s entrance. He didn’t want to stay long. After all, the fumes of the chemicals could be toxic, but he needed to check on Morbius.

Across the room, now nothing more than one big pile of debris, Michael Morbius was exactly where he was when Peter left. Now he was nothing but a burnt husk, however. Without anything else to do down here, Spider-Man sped away from the scene.

When he was far enough away, he changed out of his costume and began walking down the street back to his home. Questions hounded every one of his steps. What had Morbius really been doing? What caused the explosion: the chemical fire or the sparks from the machine he had broken. Was there anything he could’ve done differently to prevent Morbius’ death?

He didn’t have the answers. All he knew was that he had taken a killer off of the streets and prevented them from possibly making themselves more powerful.

It took a couple of minutes, but his vision returned to normal. He had gone up against foes that had packed a punch before (Green Goblin, Doctor Octopus, Sandman), but none of them had ever made him feel like this after a fight. Sitting up quickly, he waited to see if his head would start swimming again. Thankfully, it didn’t.

Common sense would dictate that he should recuperate before facing Morbius again. The thought of doing that filled Peter with dread. It needed to be done, though. Dr. Connors said that the parts that Morbius stole could be used to make the vampire even stronger and more dangerous than he already was. That was something that couldn’t be allowed. Now all he had to do was find him.

Judging by the number of bodies he found in the sewers, Morbius probably lived nearby. He’d also want to avoid heavily trafficked areas. The fangs and the all black attire wouldn’t help him blend into a crowd. Of course, the pieces of machinery he was trying to use probably required a lot of electricity to operate them, so he needed access to a heavy grid.

After his romp through the sewers, Spider-Man had lost track of where he was. With the slinging of a web, he was airborne once more. He climbed higher into New York’s skyline until he was able to get a good view of the surrounding area. None of it looked very promising. Most of the streets around him were covered with pedestrians. The only place that wasn’t was a block that was covered in construction crews adding another building to the already crowded city.

He didn’t really have a better place to start, so he swung on down. A couple of construction workers up on a crane saw him and waved. “How are you doing, fellas,” Spider-Man asked as he landed next to the men.

“I don’t believe it, Charlie,” the first man said. “I’m talking to Spider-Man. The guys at the bar are gonna call me a liar when I tell them this.”

“Guys,” Spider-Man interrupted. “I hate to cut this love fest short, but I need your help. Have either of you seen a guy dressed in black with incredibly white skin come this way?”

“You mean Dr. Mike,” Mitch asked.

“Funny you should mention him,” Charlie added. “He just came through here a few minutes ago. He seemed kinda spooked. Normally, he’ll stop and talk to us for a few minutes when he comes back from dinner, but he just walked right on by us tonight.”

“Where does he live,” Spider-Man questioned.

“I’m not sure,” Mitch replied. “All we know is he walks down that way. There’s nothing really down that way, though.”

After thanking the men, he took off down the way that they indicated. They were right. The street he walked down was a dead end at another construction site. This was certainly a place that had little to no traffic. No lights were on anywhere in the construction site, so he wasn’t in there. Or, if he was, he was hiding. That’s when Spider-Man saw it. A group of heavy duty cables coming out of the ground. Right now, they weren’t connected to anything. Soon, however, they’d be used to provide power to whatever was being built here.

Morbius was back in the sewer.

Off to the side, Spider-Man caught a glimpse of the opening that Morbius was probably using. He quickly landed, opened the grate, and jumped down. Once again, the stench of the sewer assaulted his senses, but it wasn’t nearly as bad as it was last time. No dead bodies were down this tunnel. Spider-Man scanned all around, but there were no visual clues as to where Morbius might be.

There was the faint humming sound of a machine running coming from behind him. Silently, he crept along the tunnel heading towards the noise. If possible, he wanted to catch Morbius unaware. Further up ahead, to the left, an unnatural hole marred the wall of the sewer. When he reached the opening, he quickly peeked around the corner. To his surprise, it appeared to be a less sophisticated version of Dr. Connors’ lab. Some of the equipment looked to be new, but most of it was outdated and worn. He could only assume that the old equipment was what was left over from Morbius’ accident.

Speaking of Morbius, Spider-Man saw him enter a clear glass chamber along the back wall of the sewer lab. Inside of the chamber, Doctor Octavius’ control panel was mounted to the side. The genetic marker finder of Doctor Connors was connected to it with some cables and it sat just outside the chamber. There was no way to approach the thing without Morbius seeing him. He tried to think of a way to get across the room as quickly as he could.

Suddenly, the electrical humming grew louder. Looking up, he saw that Morbius was furiously typing something into the control panel. The more he typed, the louder the humming became. Soon, Morbius’ fingers stopped moving, but the humming of the machinery grew to where it was close to deafening. Peter wasn’t sure what he should do. All he knew was that he should probably stop whatever was happening.

He leapt around the corner from where he was hiding and ran towards the chamber. Morbius’ eyes locked on him, but he didn’t move at all. His arms and legs were taut, shaking from what appeared to be strain. Whatever the machine was doing, it looked like it was incredibly painful to the doctor. Spider-Man was about ten feet away when the machinery reached a crescendo. It was immediately followed by a blinding light and he found himself flung to the floor.

When he was finally able to see again, he found Morbius still in the chamber, staring at his hands. With a cry of rage, the vampire struck the cage. Shards of glass flew in every direction. “That should’ve worked,” he cried in anguish. His gaze settling on Spider-Man again, he growled, “This is your fault. You interrupted the process. I warned you, Spider-Man. Now it’s time for you to die.”

Morbius dropped the limp form of his victim when he saw Spider-Man standing there. For a second, he did nothing. It appeared that the vampire was having an internal struggle on what to do next. Spider-Man didn’t want to wait too much longer, not if the thuggish man might still be alive. He took two steps forward with his hands raised in a placating manner.

The vampire wanted nothing to do with it. Morbius ran in the opposite direction. Spider-Man quickly ran to where the bleeding man lay. Kneeling down, he put his finger on the man’s neck, Spider-Man couldn’t feel a pulse. He was too late. Leaping back up, he took off in pursuit of the killer.

A hundred yards ahead, he saw moonlight pouring down from above. Morbius had gone back above ground. Not knowing where this manhole went, Spider-Man was slightly cautious as he tried to exit. Just as his head was about to come out of the manhole, his spider-sense went crazy. He ducked down in time to avoid the semi that drove over top of him.

His head popped up without a problem the second time. He looked all around as he stepped out onto the street. His spider-sense began tingling again. He turned in time to see Morbius swoop down out of the sky and slam hard into him. Spider-Man flew backwards into an empty bus stop. Metal dented and Plexiglas cracked, but it stopped him. Morbius landed in the street, five feet in front of him.

“Stay out of this, Spider-Man,” Morbius warned. “I don’t want to hurt you. You’ve done a lot of good for this city and you don’t deserve my wrath.”

“What about the people you left to rot in the sewers,” Spider-Man countered.

“They are robbers, child abusers, and rapists. They are not worthy of the blood I took from them.”

“Why are you doing this, Dr. Morbius?”

“Ah, so you know who I am,” he smiled sadly with his vampire fangs.. “Well, who I was, anyway. It doesn’t matter anymore.”

“Why have you stolen this equipment? To make yourself stronger?”

“Am I a Bond villain? Is this the part of the movie where I tell you all about my nefarious plans? I don’t think so, Spider-Man. The less you know, the less you can interfere with me.”

“There’s no telling what you can do with these things. If you’re not going to tell me what you’re planning on doing with them, I can only assume that it’s not good and I’m going to stop you.”

Morbius took one step forward and flew straight at Spider-Man. Shooting a web, he managed to pull himself out of the way as the vampire crashed into the bus stop, demolishing it. The vampire swung back around. Spider-Man shot a strand of web at Morbius, aiming to hit him in thee eyes and blind him. Using one of his forearms, Morbius blocked the webbing from hitting his face.

Spider-Man swung towards him, his feet leading. Even though Morbius blocked his planned attack, he hoped that it would distract him enough to get a powerful kick in. It wasn’t. As soon as he came within reach, Morbius grabbed Spider-Man’s ankle and threw him towards the ground. The strength behind the throw surprised him. He knew it shouldn’t, because he’d seen how Morbius threw that dumpster, but it still did.

Peter managed to latch onto a nearby building with a web and swung upwards at the last second to avoid colliding with the ground. Unfortunately, it put him right back in line with Morbius, who tackled him in midair. Spider-Man punched Morbius in the back a couple of times before the duo hit the concrete of the sidewalk. The breath blasted out of his lungs, Spider-Man gasped for a few seconds to recover his air. It was a task made more difficult by the weight of the vampire laying on top of him.

Before he could refill his lungs all the way, Morbius moved into a straddling position over him. The vampire drew his fist back and let loose a powerful punch that caught Peter in the cheek. Spider-Man raised his hand in an attempt to block the next blow, but Morbius’ fist went right through it. Another strike landed, this time from the other side. As his vision began to swim, he realized that he had never been hit this hard by just a punch before.

He braced as much as he could for another attack, but it never came. Instead, Morbius grabbed the back of Spider-Man’s mask and pulled his face close so they were almost touching noses. “I will let you go this one time, Spider-Man,” Morbius told him. “As I said, you have done good for this city. You don’t deserve my wrath. If you interfere with me again, however, I will not be so merciful. Next time, I will feast on your blood.”

Morbius pushed his head back, making it strike the sidewalk. A new wave of blurry vision hit him as the vampire stood up and flew off, leaving Spider-Man a mess on the ground.

“All genetic material is made up of genetic markers. These markers control everything, from looks, to behavior, to basic body functions. We know almost nothing about these markers right now. My machine will change all of that. With it, we should be able to unlock the secrets of genetic markers.

“Think of the possibilities, Peter! If my invention works, we’ll be able to see which markers cause genetic diseases and destroy them. We’ll be able to look inside a pregnant woman’s womb and detect any birth defects or genetic abnormalities before a baby is born and fix them. And that’s just in humans. What about the lizards? What if we were able to find the genetic markers that allowed lizards to regrow lost limbs? Maybe then we could put those markers in man so that they could do the same.”

Dr. Connors voice petered off towards the end as his gazed drifted down towards his missing arm. Wanting to snap the doctor’s attention back to the conversation at hand, Peter continued. “You said that your invention might make him more dangerous. How?”

“Just like we may be able to do good with it, he might use it to make himself stronger or faster if he finds the right markers.”

“Is that what you think he’s doing? Trying to become more powerful?”

“If it was the same Michael Morbius that I knew, I’d say no. But I’m not sure what he’s capable of now that he’s that….thing.”

Peter couldn’t think of anything to say to that, so he wished his professor a good night and left. There was something he needed to do and it was probably best to go ahead and get it done with. He cringed, knowing that this would be more unpleasant than being thrown around by Morbius.

“You were right next to him and didn’t get his picture,” J. Jonah Jameson exploded when Peter arrived at the Daily Bugle. “You can get all kinds of pictures of that Spider-Man freak, but you can’t get one of the man who stole a piece of scientific equipment in front of you?”

“Sorry, J.J.,” he replied sarcastically. “I was a little busy being picked up and thrown out of the room.”

“That’s no excuse. Now, you’re still a witness to the crime that nobody else has, so go to a desk out there and sit down. I’ll send someone over to interview you. Even you shouldn’t screw that up.”

Peter did as he was told and sat at an empty desk. He didn’t just wait for the reporter, though. One of the reasons he had come to the Daily Bugle was to go through its database for anything about Dr. Michael Morbius. Since Dr. Connors said that he was a Nobel prize recipient, he knew that there would be at least one story about his supposed death. After a few minutes of searching, he found what he was looking for. Unfortunately for him, the article really didn’t tell him much more than his professor had . Still, he now knew where the building was located and he’d check it out once he was done with the reporter.

When he was finally free, a half hour wait on the reporter and another hour of repetitive questions later, he swung on his webs across town. No matter how many times he’d done it, gliding through the air at the end of a web was always exhilarating. The rush of the air, the view of the city from up high, it was all still magical to him.

His enjoyment of his travel was cut short two blocks away from his destination when he heard a man cry for help. He looked down in time to see a thuggish looking man being dragged into an open manhole by an overly white hand. The only time that Spider-Man had seen that color before was on Morbius. He swung down lower and dropped onto the pavement just as the manhole cover was put back into place. With a swift shot, he grabbed the cover with a web and yanked it out of its spot. He leapt into the air and fell through the opening easily.

The first thing that hit him when he landed gently was the smell. Sewers were supposed to be rancid, but this wasn’t the smell of waste. It was the smell of death. If it wasn’t for the fact that he knew a dangerous person was not far away, he might have stopped to throw up. Dozens of bodies were to the left and right of him as the sewer ran further up. The killer had taken the time to line the corpses against the walls so they wouldn’t block the flow. A sudden shifting sound made him look up ahead.

Twenty feet away, Morbius stood, holding the thuggish looking man in his arms. Judging from the limpness of the man’s body, Spider-Man assumed that he was already dead. The large volume of blood coming from his neck supported that theory. Morbius wore a look of satisfaction as drops of blood dripped from his fangs.

That last thought made Spider-Man pause. Morbius had fangs. He drank blood. Spider-Man had come across a real life vampire.

By the time Spider-Man made it out of the window, the man in black was nowhere to be seen. Running off in a random direction looking for him wouldn’t do any good. Instead, he snuck back inside, put his regular clothes back on, and hid in the stairwell until the police “rescued” him. While he waited, he kicked himself for his hesitation earlier. He also kicked himself for not getting any pictures of the man in black. JJ was going to go nuts on him later for that.

When the police finally found him, it was still a long wait until he was finally free to go. They asked him the same questions over and over again for hours. He walked them through the chain of events, leaving out only the part about changing into Spider-Man. Now he knew why he helped people as Spider-Man. Being a policeman would entail hours of useless questioning.

By the time the police were done with him, it was dark outside. Dr. Connors was leaving too, and they walked across the campus together. For the first few minutes, both of them were silent. Finally, Peter asked, “Who was that, Dr. Connors?” The professor still didn’t talk. “He almost killed me in there. I think I deserve to know who he is, at least.”

“His name is Dr. Michael Morbius,” Connors sighed. “He won the Nobel Prize for biochemistry when he was barely out of college. Then, around 5 years ago, he found out he had a rare blood disorder. There is no cure.

“Undaunted, he took it upon himself tofind a cure. About a year ago, he came to me, asking to look at some of the research I’d done on lizards. I was flattered that he even knew who I was, let alone wanting my research.”

“Why would he want research on lizards?”

“Lizards are fascinating creatures, Peter. Did you know that there are some types of lizards that can regrow lost limbs?” Peter wisely kept his eyes away from Connors’ missing arm and let the comment drop. “Anyway,” the doctor continued,” about 6 months ago, he came back to me and asked me to help him with his latest experiment. I was going to, until I heard the FDA had told him he couldn’t do it. As much as I wanted to help him, it wasn’t worth losing my career.

“Morbius did the experiment anyway. Nobody’s sure what exactly happened. All I know is that because some of my research was found at his lab, they questioned me exhaustively about it. They told me that he was dead. They told me the accident killed him.”

They fell into another silence. Peter was digesting the new information and Dr. Connors was reminiscing about the past. “I’m sorry,” the professor suddenly apologized. “With all that happened, never did tell me why you came to see me.”

“Believe it or not, I’m here because of him.” Dr. Connors eyed him skeptically, so Peter pressed on. “I was shooting pictures of a police excavation crew and he showed up and took something. I wanted to show you the picture I took of it to see if you knew what it was.”

Peter pulled the picture out of his back pocket, unfolded it, and handed it to Dr. Connors. He studied the image for a moment before looking up. “I recognize this,” he said almost silently. “This is Dr. Octavius’, isn’t it?”

“Yeah,” Peter confirmed. “It was part of his machine. The control panel.”

“He showed me a few of the things it could do, but I never got a chance to try it out for myself. All I really remember is how much more advanced it was than anything I had ever seen before. It is light-years ahead of everything still. It’s actually kind of scary.”

“What could he do with both it and your device?”

Dr. Connors’ eyes lit up. “He could make it work.” When he saw that his student didn’t follow, he expanded. “The problem I’ve come across during the few preliminary tests I’ve been able to run is that the computing power at the university isn’t nearly enough. I don’t get anywhere with it. Unfortunately for me, the only places that have the kind of power I need are controlled by the government and they won’t let me near them.”

“But what would he be able to do with it? Blow up the entire city?”

“No, nothing like that. But, he could be able to turn himself into something far more dangerous than he already is.”

I have an idea for a new story. The problem is that I’m not sure I want to write it. It’s not that I don’t like my story idea, or that I don’t think I can pull it off. I just don’t know if I want to put time and effort into something that, unless a miracle happens, will never come into fruition.
The story idea came about when a couple of us were talking at work. A question came up that got us all thinking: if you could write any comic book, what would it be?
There are lots of comic books that it would be cool to write for: Daredevil, Nightwing, or Wolverine. The more I thought about it, though, the less I wanted to do those characters. I love those characters and I’m not sure I’d be able to do them justice.
So, then I thought “Who would I write, then?” Continue reading →

In addition to the Versus matchups we come up with at work (I’ll get to my next one soon….I hope), we also come up with hypothetical situations and go back and forth on our opinions on them. Like Versus, these situations involve movies/books/TV shows/comic book things that just happen to catch our attention. For example, we discussed which movie character, from a movie not set in a science fiction/comic book world, would be best suited to wear a Green Lantern ring. I personally think it would be Rocky. For sheer willpower, never-gonna-quit attitude, nobody can match the Italian Stallion.